No Charges to Be Filed Over Nude Photos : Controversy: Laguna Beach woman will not be prosecuted for pictures she took of a 12-year-old girl.

No charges will be filed against Laguna Beach photographer Marilyn Lennon over photographs she took of a partially nude 12-year-old girl at a professional workshop in Santa Fe, N.M.

“There’s not going to be a criminal prosecution,” said Caroline Bass, an assistant district attorney in Santa Fe. Bass said Friday she made the determination after reviewing a file prepared by investigators with the Santa Fe Police Department.

The file has been turned over to the New Mexico Department of Labor, Bass said, for investigation of possible violations of regulations involving work permits. Officials at the workshop where Lennon took the photos declined to comment Friday.

Lennon said Friday she was relieved but not surprised.

“The whole time, I knew I had not done anything,” she said. She took the photographs in June at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshop during a weeklong session led by nationally known art photographer Joyce Tenneson.

On Oct. 1, Lennon took three slides of a 12-year-old female model, nude from the waist up, to Irvine Photo Graphics for printing, and the lab alerted police. After three days of investigation, Irvine police decided that because the photos were taken in Santa Fe, the case was not in the department’s jurisdiction. It was also determined that Lennon could not be charged with possession of pornographic material under California law.

Santa Fe police investigated and turned the case over to the first judicial district attorney’s office in Santa Fe. The office decided this week that no child abuse laws had been broken.

Lennon has defended the photographs as taken “purely from an artistic point of view.” Lennon, a makeup artist and photographer who takes studio portraits for modeling portfolios, has said she wanted the slides printed for her personal portfolio.

Tenneson has said the girl’s mother was present during the sessions. The photographer added that she doesn’t usually use underage models in her workshops but that it was suggested by the mother--who is also a model--and the daughter.